Dead against plan for streets

When Joyce Wadin bought her Sunrise home more than 20 years ago, she marveled at its proximity and convenient access to shops, schools and other amenities.

But soon Wadin will have to take a circuitous route when her street becomes a dead end.

"I wish I had known when I bought my house that I would be living in a dead-end situation," said Wadin, who lives on 27th Street. "That's not what I want."

Wadin is among hundreds of residents whose streets will be sealed off in November, when crews begin extending Hiatus Road from Oakland Park to Sunrise boulevards, with four lanes of traffic split by a median. The new thoroughfare will replace a wasteland of scrub grass and a sliver of asphalt.

A new 10-foot high concrete wall will protect abutting neighborhoods, including Westbridge, Sunrise Manor, Sunrise Golf Village and Woodstock.

The 1.4-mile ribbon of pavement caps a nearly decade-long effort to build a north-south artery from Oakland Park Boulevard to Interstate 595. With relatively few traffic lights, the stretch is designed to relieve traffic on Nob Hill and Flamingo roads, county engineers say.

In 2000, some Sunrise commissioners deemed the Hiatus extension as inevitable - given that it belonged to the county. They voted to create dead ends in hopes of thwarting traffic, though dozens of residents objected.

Complaints about drainage, property values, emergency vehicle access and school transportation recently amplified when county officials unveiled plans to begin building this fall. The road will cost as much as $11 million. That includes about $1.5 million for the wall, half of which the city will cover."All of the development that you have in the western part of the city didn't exist when the decision was made to cut off our street," said Michael McLeod, who lives in the Woodstock neighborhood near Sunset Strip. "This will be very inconvenient. . . . We need to have more roads available to our neighborhood for emergency vehicles."

Proponents of the road project, many of whom want to protect their children from bad drivers, praised the design. "I think it will keep our property values higher because it will create a community where there is one way in and one way out," said Margaret Collins, 48, a software engineer in Woodstock. "The wall will prevent crooks from coming in and stealing our stuff, and it will protect our children who play outside."

The road extension will go ahead as planned unless city commissioners reverse themselves, said Bao Dang, the design section manager of the Broward County Highway Construction and Engineering Division.

"The decision [for the dead ends] was made before this point," Dang said. "But if there's enough support for roads to cut through, and the city commission decides they want to do that, they can certainly coordinate with the county commission to change that."

Sunrise Commissioner Don Rosen and Deputy Mayor Roger Wishner said the city may host a workshop to address residents' ongoing concerns, although no date has been set.

"I think we should give the community a fair chance to speak about it," Rosen said.

Jennifer Gollan can be reached at jgollan@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7920.